Another judgy thread: Opening up marriages

mostlyclueless

New member
I wanted to bring this up as something I have seen that is starting to bother me, and I'm hoping to hear some other perspectives will help me be less judgy.

I find myself getting irritated at the posts about opening up a marriage. It seems wildly dishonest to me to enter into a monogamous relationship, sign a contract saying you'll do that forever, co-mingle your lives in a way that makes it very difficult to extricate yourself, and then tell your spouse you want to change the rules.

Are these people really blindsided by their desire not to be monogamous? It never occurred to them before they got married? It seems more likely to me they always had a hunch, and didn't bring it up until all the contract signing was done so their spouse was more likely to try to put up with it.

Ok, that's all my judging. Tell me I'm wrong! Tell me your stories!
 
I've been lurking for several months, but your question relates to my situation. I went into monogamy on autopilot, it was just the default setting. It was only when I developed feelings for another girl that I realised I was poly (this took quite a while) so no, I don't feel I was dishonest with my fiancee.
 
I find myself getting irritated at the posts about opening up a marriage. It seems wildly dishonest to me to enter into a monogamous relationship, sign a contract saying you'll do that forever, co-mingle your lives in a way that makes it very difficult to extricate yourself, and then tell your spouse you want to change the rules.
A couple of things right out of the gate here.

I don't recall signing any such contract when we got married. Is this a local thing? The marriage license and the marriage certificate only state the names of the parties and declare them to be husband and wife. The application we signed only required us to provide identifying information and to certify we aren't lying. Nothing about monogamy. Now, the law does say we can't MARRY an additional person, which means we can't file another application and get another certificate, but it says nothing about what our relationship should be.

Even before we got the paperwork, we have always known and agreed that the piece of paper isn't what makes a marriage. We are married because we agree on that and behave accordingly. This is evidenced by the multitude of cheating spouses - the paper certainly doesn't stop them.

Now, we also had a church wedding. The exact vow we took was ""I take you as my wedded wife/husband, and I promise you love, honor, and respect; to be faithful to you; and not to forsake you until death do us part"

When our relationship changed and someone else entered we still fulfilled the conditions. I love, honor and respect her, she loves, honors and respects me. We have not forsaken each other and have no plans to do so.

As to the "faithful" part, that is something we had lengthy discussions on. We thought about what that means to us, and, luckily, we came up with matching definitions. It's about trust and honesty. Faith and trust are synonyms.

Are these people really blindsided by their desire not to be monogamous? It never occurred to them before they got married? It seems more likely to me they always had a hunch, and didn't bring it up until all the contract signing was done so their spouse was more likely to try to put up with it.
Personally, I haven't given it much thought until we met our girl. I never had an explicitly articulated "desire not to be monogamous". It's just that one day I realized I also love this other person as well. Surprised the hell out of me.

One thing I've learned lately is that love doesn't work the same for everyone. So, my experience may not be transferable. People may have had this desire and ignored it, or hid it because they haven't come to terms with it. Or they might have hoped it would go away, or thought it was just a phase. Who knows.

Also, people do change. Neither me nor my wife are the same people we were when we got married. This is probably a good thing, since I would call a lot of our changes growth. (One caveat here - this in no way validates the idea some people have that they can change their partner. There are many factors in how people change and only a tiny minority of them are external.)
 
Oh yeah, nowhere have I made a contract about monogamy when marrying. The only thing that was stated is that by getting married, we form a family; nothing about who else that family can entail. [Neither have I promised forever, simply said that I want to commit in the present moment.]

It is simply not realistic to enter into a union, and expect there to be no changes, ever. People change, and relationships need to be adjusted or they will break. That's just life.
 
Let me clarify -- I'm talking about the threads where people come here and say, "my spouse is adamantly opposed to open/poly relationships, how can I convince him/her to let me have one?"
 
Let me clarify -- I'm talking about the threads where people come here and say, "my spouse is adamantly opposed to open/poly relationships, how can I convince him/her to let me have one?"
Oh, those...

Well, the stuff about contracts and change and all that still applies. That said, there is a definite problem there. The problem isn't necessarily one of dishonesty towards the partner, though.

There is a multitude of ways this can come about. It might be that people truly got blindsided. It might be they deluded themselves. It might be they were dishonest. The one common thing here is that they are looking to change someone else. This, as I mentioned above, is a silly belief that ruins a lot of relationships. It's rampant across all types of relationships. How many times have you come across someone who suffers for years and bitches about some characteristic or other of their partner that they thought they would be able to influence? Anything from not picking up laundry to excessive drinking, to this particular issue. This, however, is a worst case scenario.

The other case is that, to be blunt, their desires are getting the best of them and making them drop an infobomb on their partner rather than having a discussion. It's damned hard to be patient.

On the third hand, it's entirely possible that some of these folks are just selfish and looking for validation. Can't say for sure, not being a mind reader.
 
Well in my first marriage we were monogamous for 11 years before being other. Luckily we were on the same page about thinking that non monogamy would great, but I can certainly see how somebody would have no idea that they'd be interested in more than one person until it happened. I sure didn't.

But yes, trying to manipulate somebody who wants monogamy to embrace poly when they don't want to is kinda shitty. I certainly could see why you'd want to do it though, nobody wants to lose a person they love so it makes sense to scramble. Most people do want to have their cake and eat it too. I just feel bad when the falling in love with somebody else comes before conversations about non monogamy.

I think that it's great as alternatives to monogamy start becoming more known and understood that more people will know there are options and discuss them before getting married to hopefully prevent stuff like this happening as often.
 
I'm one of the people who opened up my marriage.

What happened for me was that I had been told so much that when you are really in love, you stop loving others, that I assumed it would happen to me too. Even though I had always had several crushes, or several boyfriends, I figured I would find "the one" and settle down and everything would be fine.

Add to that the fact that we needed to get married for him to be able to stay in the country, and we married much earlier than I otherwise would have wanted (although after three years, which many people consider normal).

When I kept falling in love for others I did my research, realise I wasn't evil or anything but just polyamorous, and told him about it. He was shocked and surprised, and hurt, being monogamous himself.
I absolutely understand the confusion and hurt the people must feel. Finally understand what's "wrong" with you is liberating. Being unable to explore that part of you is restricting and can make you depressed and miserable.
And people being what they are, each side is going to think of ways to change the other's mind. I've seen it in other occasions, such as children ("if he loves me, he'll realise he's happy with me and won't want children to ruin it!" "if she loves me, she'll want my children!"
I think it's important to realise that people might adapt, but rarely change to that extent. My husband reluctantly agreed, nothing came out of it for 1-2 years, then he met someone and brought it back up, then I met someone (Seamus, I'm with him now).
I had been with Seamus 6 months when it became obvious my marriage wasn't working, so I broke up. Two month later I learned that my husband identified as monogamous again, and said he had always been and was pretending for my sake.

In hindsight, I wish we had broken up the second I mentioned polyamory and he was against it. The rest of the relationship was a wreck, a mess, and we could have gone each our own ways still friendly if only we hadn't tried to hold on to this utopia of making it work anyways.

But sometimes it works, and people who don't know how to deal with these situations can use the help and advice of this board.
 
Here's my take on it...

Bear and I have been married for seven years. When we met I was very open with him about my sexuality. He assumed that meant that he would get to have two girls in the bedroom every now and then. I assumed that the girl-loving part of my life was over.

Neither of us told the other what our assumptions were.

Fast forward through 6 1/2 years of marriage, which was very happy, btw, to last fall. A long time friend that's always flirted with me suddenly started laying it on hard and thick. I asked Bear if it was ok with him if I had sex with her without him present. He said yes.

Later he told me he did fear that I might not come home, or that I would tell him that it was over between us. That really shocked me. I mean, he's my LIFE. To use the godawful cliche... he completes me.

I was intimate with my friend, which I thought would lead to a relationship with her. Because of assumptions she made, it was a one shot deal. Because I was in love with her I got my heart broken.

But, this isn't about that....

However, that incident opened up the opportunity to talk about our sexual relationship. I told him that while yes, I really love being with women and miss it, that I didn't want to be swinger because that's just icky to me. I enjoy having relationships for the sake of the relationship, not just for sex. And, I've had numerous deep emotional relationships that involved no sex at all. For me those relationships are a million times more fulfilling that some random sexual encounter could ever be.

At this point in my life I knew exactly two people who were self-described as poly, though one I would argue is more of a swinger.

Bear and I talked, and talked, and talked, and then we talked some more. We decided that we would try the poly thing.

Before I started researching it never dawned on me that "polyamorous" was a label I could apply to myself. Bear, smart man that he is, says that he already knew because he knows me so well. He knew what my desires were and is cool with them.

I would argue that we both ASSUMED the other person would understand what our relationship would be like when we got married. We both come from a background that claims one man-one woman, monogamous for life, as the only "right" way to do marriage. I assumed that he would want only that. He assumed I knew he was more free-thinking. So, neither of us has been shocked, coerced, badgered, or talked into exploring the poly lifestyle.

We are now dating someone who has also never been in a poly relationship before.

Did I know seven or 12 or 20 years ago that this was what I wanted for my life? No, I did not. Did Bear know? I don't know, I haven't asked him. Did he know when he married me that he wanted to share a female lover with me? Yes. Did I know he wanted that? No. Did I know *I* wanted that? No, not really. Did it become obvious to me that I did want that with the heart-breaker? Oh, most certainly. I wanted her as our wife. I could see the whole hand-fasting ceremony in my head.

It only made sense from there and a couple subsequent other encounters that yes, I do identify as poly.

I can also tell you that if EITHER of us had said, "No, I don't want this." that we would not be where we are right now.

Neither Bear nor I entertain thoughts of trying to change the other. We married each other because we liked each other as we were/are. Have we changed and grown over the last seven years? Oh, most certainly. We've faced trials and tribulations. We've had expectations dashed. We've had dreams shattered. But we've also climbed mountains, ridden some wild bulls, slain monsters, and stood back-to-back to fight enemies. All of these experiences have changed us in ways we never imagined and we are better for it.

And now we're here, embarking on yet another grand, life-changing adventure that we will, as always, journey together.
 
We got married without any expectation of sexual monogamy - "forsaking all others" was not in our vows. Instead we had boundaries that revolved around what we were comfortable with at that time in our relationship. At the time of our marriage (and indeed before) his "boundaries" included "no boys" for me. I boundary I had no serious problems with for 19 years - until, unexpectedly, I did. "Boundaries", like people, can change.

We were lucky enough to recognize before we go married, that society's "rules" for marriage were not necessarily the ones that we wanted to live by. We defined our marriage by rules that made sense to us - screw society. Not everyone has the benefit of exposure to alternative configurations/ideas before they tie the knot. They may not be aware of the fact that they DO have a choice (societal pressures being what they are) - so I don't think they can be faulted entirely for realizing after the fact that they do have options.

Tonberry - good point re: having children. When I married MrS I was aware of the fact that he didn't desire kids (he was 24 at the time - I thought this was entirely normal). I assumed that at some point he would change his mind, but was prepared for the possibility that he would not - not a deal-breaker for me. Turns out he DID change his mind - and we couldn't have kids anyway...

Point is - people get married (date, make friends, etc.) with all KINDS of assumptions/expectations. Sometimes they are WRONG. We live in the real world - sometimes we make mistakes. Should people who, at some point, realize they have made a mistake own up and admit it? Or should they "suffer in silence" and, possibly, sabotage any possibility of honesty in their relationships? Would you really want people to continue to lie to their partners about who they are and what they want once they have come to the realization that their marriage is based on a premise that they have come to realize is not actually true for them?

Yes - it sucks. It sucks for the partner who was led to believe that their lives would proceed in a certain pattern. It sucks for people who want kids to be infertile. It sucks to realize that your life has been based on a lie that you told yourself. Life sucks sometimes. At some point I think the best path is to look at where you ACTUALLY are and decide what is the "most honest" decision from that point onward. We can't change the past, the future is unknown, the most we can do is take the present moment and make the best decisions we can based on the available information. And sometimes those decisions SUCK. Sometimes we will make the wrong decisions, sometimes we will regret them, sometimes they will lead to happiness beyond our wildest dreams...
 
It seems wildly dishonest to me to enter into a monogamous relationship, sign a contract saying you'll do that forever, co-mingle your lives in a way that makes it very difficult to extricate yourself, and then tell your spouse you want to change the rules.!

It seems wildly unrealistic to me to believe that you can make a promise never to change / grow / evolve / re-consider in your life. In our case the only thing we promised was that we would stay together as long as we both felt that we were being supported in our personal and mutual growth. Turns out to have worked (34 years) much better than 'till death do us part' stuff...

But I agree, unilateral decision-making is not a recipe for success, and this is probably something that should be sorted out in the beginning before the relationship settles down.
 
Let me clarify -- I'm talking about the threads where people come here and say, "my spouse is adamantly opposed to open/poly relationships, how can I convince him/her to let me have one?"
I`ll agree that the convincing thing is annoying. That being said, it`s not like it`s a level playing-field out there. I`ve been trying the poly-from-the-bat home run for about 6 years now, with no success.

Prior to that, I lived with someone. I remember sleepwalking through that relationship in college and suddenly waking up to a shared lease, jointly bought appliances, two cats, and monogamy. It`s just what I felt I had to do in order to have relationships and regular sex. But, suddenly, having sex with her sounded as attractive as chewing styrofoam (not because she lacked beauty; far from it).

That`s when I panicked.




-------------

I drank at dive bars waiting for her to fall asleep before walking in the door. I moved to the living room. In my defense, I didn`t get married. Not that it would have mattered. Nor did I try to sway her into open up. It was basically a go-alone thing right then. I`m going to be with other women. Either we open up, or we break up. Anything else would surely have lead to cheating.

The very first thing I did after that conversation was go to a brothel. Rainy day on the West Side of Manhattan. I picked the hooker whose physical perks I fantasized about, but were missing in my wife. It was like a ton of bricks lifted off my shoulders. My lungs opened up again. Indeed, we were open for about 3 months until she could no longer stand the fact I had another girlfriend.

I was engaged when I was very young, at 19. I look back upon that experience as essentially a way to defy and/or substitute my parents. The social symbolism of marriage giving me the false sense of security I needed when leaving my father`s home, without even being fully financially independent. Even then, monogamy issues cropped up since, I had gotten engaged to the woman I lost my virginity to. The thought of being with only one woman in my whole life haunted me. :eek: Needless to say, we didn`t go through with it.

I guess it`s all turned out for the best. :)
 
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Is someone able to be counted as truly okay with opening the relationship if they:
1. find their partner's gender preference for extra partners to be sexually ineffectual and therefor, non threatening?
2. have their eyes on what they can sexually gain from their partner being sexual bait to the non threatening gender?

I'm seeing this all the damn time in this open relationship exploration. It is annoying when the above situation is what motivates the people involved.
 
1. find their partner's gender preference for extra partners to be sexually ineffectual and therefor, non threatening?
2. have their eyes on what they can sexually gain from their partner being sexual bait to the non threatening gender?
These seem to be excellent questions, which I have argued about in this forum. I`m afraid my answers are unpopular here, so I`ll wait and see if others chip in.

In my case, if I understand the questions correctly, the threatening gender for a female partner would be male (unless he were bi). I do not feel threatened by either gender in a male partner. The threatening gender for myself is female (threat of rejection), in reply to question #2. I do not feel butthurt when rejected by a male intererest.
 
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I'm talking about when one person asks for an opening to their monogamous relationship predominantly for them to seek partners of their own gender.
If their current partner only agrees because they don't think the gender the asking partner wants to seek is a sexual threat to them and sees a chance for them to get in the mix - is that person really okay with an open relationship?

As a single person I was not always in a monogamous relationship even if I was sexually active. There were times when I was seeing and being intimate with two different guys and neither of them or I wanted exclusivity to be a part of that at that time. They too were seeing and being intimate with other women at the time.
Those two people could very well not want a committed relationship to be one where I could continue to sleep with other men but they would be fine if I only saw other women partly because they hoped to also be able to have sex with those women. Wouldn't they be doing the same as they were before exclusivity was agreed upon? It doesn't sound like being at peace with the concept of an open relationship to me. It sounds like using someone as bait.
 
I'm talking about when one person asks for an opening to their monogamous relationship predominantly for them to seek partners of their own gender.
If their current partner only agrees because they don't think the gender the asking partner wants to seek is a sexual threat to them and sees a chance for them to get in the mix - is that person really okay with an open relationship?

As a single person I was not always in a monogamous relationship even if I was sexually active. There were times when I was seeing and being intimate with two different guys and neither of them or I wanted exclusivity to be a part of that at that time. They too were seeing and being intimate with other women at the time.
Those two people could very well not want a committed relationship to be one where I could continue to sleep with other men but they would be fine if I only saw other women partly because they hoped to also be able to have sex with those women. Wouldn't they be doing the same as they were before exclusivity was agreed upon? It doesn't sound like being at peace with the concept of an open relationship to me. It sounds like using someone as bait.
Maybe. But, in Woody Allen`s words, "whatever works."

I abhor the idea that a relationship is a bank account with carefully detailed pluses and minuses in blue and red ink, and that the balance between the two columns must never exceed zero, unless you pay interest on the debt.

Things are hardly ever equal. There may be all sorts of variation in the dominant-submissive, poly-mono, bi-straight, spectra between a single couple. And even more changes over time. Some people like doing the cooking, others the dishes.

----------

What if you enjoy picking up women and I don`t? And you`re perfectly happy with having only me as a male partner? Isn`t that all that matters?

The above question is not merely rhetorical; I despise picking up women. :eek: It feels tremendously unnatural to me, I grow a tumor and gray hair, I lose sleep and life expectancy over it, even if pussy is being thrown at me. :D

So, it would be nice if I had a partner, male or female, who enjoyed doing that for me. The difference between me and your example is that I`d be more than willing to let you (or a girl) roam free with other guys as well, as long as I wasn`t consistently sucking my thumb on chilly nights.
 
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The premise of the OP is that at the time we met our partner we had ourselves all worked out and knew exactly what we wanted out of life, never to change.

Not only is this not true in practice, ut I would suggest that it is a very bad thing. We all need to grow and not be stifled by our lives, no?

When I met my longest partner, I had no clue about polyamory, was doing my best to suppress all the feelings that I felt so that I could live a "normal" life. Wife, 2.3 kids, etc. It was wrong, so I was going to do my best to make it work.

As I learned more and more about who I was, I realised that this just wasn't who I was, and that there were a bunch of people out there who felt similarly and that I wasn't some self-obsessed evil person, fearing commitment and wanting to hurt those I care most about. My partner stuck through me with this, even though it most definitely wasn't what she signed up for, but it was highly one-sided at the start, as I was trying to work things out.
 
It seems wildly dishonest to me to enter into a monogamous relationship, sign a contract saying you'll do that forever, co-mingle your lives in a way that makes it very difficult to extricate yourself, and then tell your spouse you want to change the rules.

Are these people really blindsided by their desire not to be monogamous? It never occurred to them before they got married? It seems more likely to me they always had a hunch, and didn't bring it up until all the contract signing was done so their spouse was more likely to try to put up with it.

I think it would be just as useful to ask why there are people who seem to think it's perfectly OK to try to lock somebody into an unchanging state--"we're married and for the rest of your life you can't change!" Seriously, does anybody sign on for a marriage expecting that they aren't going to be able to change and grow for the rest of their lives? Do they sign on with the expectation that their spouse will not change and grow ever?

Your questioning supposes only one "negative" side to the phenomenon. Being part of human experience, there's almost always going to be an other "negative" side to the same thing. Each is as valid as the other.
 
So I agree people change and so marriages change. I'm of two minds on this for a major reason. DH and I were married more than 15 years, mono both of us, when we opened to poly. My main resource was a poly/mono online group that I have left.

See, I was surprised by poly. Sure we look back NOW and see signs of it from dating in high school, but we were caught unawares. So many are when they've been married for a long time. And sadly, what catches them unawares is already falling for someone else. So you don't just have a married couple suddenly confronted with poly. You have a married couple blindsided by an affair and the refusal to give up the affair. That's where the unfair part comes in.

Not only is the person who is blindsided suddenly having to understand there are other forms of non monogamy, but their partner has had an affair. This is really really hard to deal with and for rebuilding trust takes years to work out, if ever.

Personally, my problem is that there is a kind of attitude that the person who cheated is a 'poor poly'. Someone that had no idea they had options so HAD to cheat. Who is somehow the victim and society has done them a great disservice. They do not feel the need to be portrayed as a bad guy in any sense. They do not have to apologize or feel any guilt at all for breaking the trust of a relationship. They really just need to tell their partner (spouse) that poly is okay and show them articles on how to get over their jealousies and have compersion!

This annoys me to no end and is the reason I will never, ever, point someone to that stupid list. Not only are the people that cheated told not to feel guilt or try to restablish trust, they are coddles and patted and told what a victim they are. Then, when they inevitably lose their marriage, it's not their fault. When they then lose their poly relationship they refused to give up in order to repair their current relationship, it is again not their fault. There was too much coddling.

Which is why I prefer this place. Sure sometimes people seem a little harsh and you better believe there are people here who I don't agree with and so who's opinion I disregard. However, no matter how scary it is to the poly person to suddenly realize that they CAN love more than one person, no matter how upset they are at a mistake as huge as cheating is, they are not allowed to keep their victim card and be coddled. People are called out here. It may not always be appropriate or kind, but it's necessary. I tire of being told I shouldn't feel guilt for mistakes I made in my marriage when it comes to falling for someone else. If I don't feel guilt, if I'm not willing to put in the work, then how much could I possibly love my partner?


Long story short, yes, we married people can be blindsided with realizing we are poly. Just as someone can be blindsided with the truth of their sexuality. No, not everyone handles it well in a mono relationship, but not everyone is pulling one over on their spouse just to have the best of both worlds.
 
Disclaimer: the post reflects my thoughts on the newly "surprise!" polys who seek to suddenly alter their relationship.

Thank you for posting this topic, as I've often thought the same.

I think there are people that are honestly surprised to find themselves loving multiple people at once. I don't see why that gives them the right to unilaterally re-design the entire relationship for their benefit.

I've often thought the "married and now poly" bomb was like going into work and having your boss suddenly announce that your job has been transferred to another country. "You can either move or lose your job. Decide now." rather than having any say-so in the matter.
 
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